What We are Doing this Year to Increase Personal and Professional Growth

More intentional work hours for better work life balance. 01:19

More exercise.02:15

Better organization.02:55

Do things you love – hobbies.04:17

Reading books.06:05

Focus on fewer things.07:35

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:27David Blackmon: Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP the podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.

00:34 Tim Strifler: I’m Tim Strifler.

00:36 David Blackmon: Today, we’re going to talk about what we’re doing this year to increase personal and professional growth. This is a really, really important work can take its toll over time. We can get kind of bogged down. Doing the same thing over and over again, can get old. It’s important to reevaluate, do some things differently, maybe even do some of the same things that you were doing that worked really well. Tim and I are going to talk about some of the things that we’re going to be doing in our life this year to help improve our personal growth, but also to improve our professional growth and this podcast is one of them. Tim, you want to get us kicked off today?

01:19 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. For me, a couple things that I plan on doing is having more intentional work hours for better work life balance. It’s something I kind of did but then got away from. When you’re an entrepreneur and a small business owner, especially when you work from home, it’s really hard to distinguish from work time, and relax time, rest time, time with family, that sort of a thing because your home is your office. I have a separate office and so typically what I do is I’m only in there for work and when I leave my office, shut the door, I leave my work in there and I go and whatever.

02:00 Tim Strifler: However, the last couple months or so, kind of got away from that habit to where I was, had my laptop in the living room, on the couch doing work or on my phone, replying to customer presale questions, different things like that. So kind of got away from that and I kind of saw the effects of that, not being able to rest and let my brain rejuvenate. That’s one thing. Another thing is more exercise. I kind of got into a routine and then, as David mentioned a couple episodes ago, I got sick bad stomach bug. I had to take a week off of work. I was puking like crazy. Sorry for the gross visual. But yeah, so that kind of put a damper on that. I needed to get back in that routine.

02:46 Tim Strifler: I think all of these things even though they’re kind of personal but they’re intertwined, personal, professional. You have a good work life balance, exercise, you eat right, all of that. It’s kind of all contribute to better professional growth. You’re going to be more productive, accomplish more, and be happier because of it. Then the last thing is just better organization. Organization is something I’ve always struggled with. I’ve grown so much in this over the past four years being a business owner, and having to be organized, and delegating to my team, and stuff like that. But it’s something I can continue to grow in and I plan to do as well.

03:27 David Blackmon: Awesome. I think those are all amazing things and some of mine are going to kind of overlap with Tim’s. You know what? That’s okay. There’s a few things for 2019 that I am doing to improve my personal and professional growth. For me personally to start off, I do want a better work life balance like Tim said. I do think that’s important. What I’ve really started to do it towards the end of last year and I didn’t realize how much it was going to affect my personal and how much it was going to really affect my professional growth. I love what I do, I’m an entrepreneur so going to work every day is not like a job for me. It’s fun. It’s like a kid that gets to go play on the playground at recess in elementary school. That’s what going to work for me is like. I love what I do.

04:17 David Blackmon: But when you do it seven days a week all day, even though you love, you don’t realize the toll that it takes on you. A better work life balance is super important. Last November, I decided to get out of the house, get away from the office, and do something fun for myself since I wasn’t traveling full time as a digital nomad anymore, and I found these little local poker tournaments. I love to play poker. It’s always been a passion of mine. I haven’t done it in many, many years and I went and signed up for these little local poker tournaments and guess what? It was a blast. I mean, I absolutely had so much fun doing it. It was awesome. Well, what I found out three months down the road after playing in a few poker tournaments, I went and played my first world series of poker circuit main event here recently.

05:14 David Blackmon: What I found for me is that taking those weekends, getting completely away from work, focusing on a hobby has just … I mean, I come back to work on Monday and I am ready to take on the world, the ideas are flowing, things are going, and it’s not just the same old, same old thing, back to back, to back, to back, to back. I know my team has noticed it, they’ve commented on it. They’re like, “Dude, I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing it because things are rocking and rolling and we are firing on all cylinders.” Truthfully, I felt like my brain is firing on all cylinders. Find a hobby that you like, get away from your work, that’s connected to your work. I did not realize for me how important that really was. Another thing that I did this year and I started implementing is I’ve already read two books this year.

06:09 Tim Strifler: Damn.

06:09 David Blackmon: Measure What Matters, which is the story about, okay, ours objectives and key results. It’s what Google, and Microsoft, and all of those guys use to measure their success and where they need to focus and stuff which was a really good book. The second book that I read that probably changed not only on a professional level but a personal level as well, and you’ll have to excusehttps://wpthepodcast.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=28126&action=edit# my language, but it was Unfu*k Yourself. I mean, I didn’t realize how screwed up I really was until I read this book. It’s not a self help book, it’s more of a book that … Well, you’re just going to have to go check it out. I’m not going to tell you. It’s a great book.

06:52 David Blackmon: I’ve read two books and they’ve really put some things in perspective and I think for me, what I’m going to do this year is I’m going to commit to reading a book a month now and I’ll list the books. I’ll let people know on the podcasts and stuff if you want to follow along and read any of the books that I did read and I enjoyed. I’ll let you know. I’m going to do like Tim. I’m going to exercise and eat right. I started doing that last summer, the end of the spring in May and I dropped 35 pounds. Really, really, exercising, eating right, and then life happens and it’s hard to stay on that path and stuff. I really need to get, and want to get back to that, and will get back to that. That’s part of my personal and professional growth this year.

07:39 David Blackmon: I’m going to focus on fewer things as opposed to as many things. I’ve had a bad habit of … I’ve got shiny object syndrome so if something looks really good I’m going to go after it and chase it and I’m going to be like, “Oh, let’s do this. Oh, squirrel. Oh, let’s do this.” I only have shiny object syndrome. I’ve got probably adult ADHD or something because I’m so there, if it looks good and sounds good and stuff and I’ll pivot. My poor team thinks that I’m probably a mad man at the helm, but they’ve been fantastic and great and I absolutely love every single one of them. Speaking of teams, the last thing on my list this year is to trust my team.

08:28 David Blackmon: I’ve put very capable, awesome, amazing people in places and I’ve learned over time to trust them, let them do what they’re great at, and trust them that they’re going to do what’s best for our company and stuff. I’m going to continue doing that for 2019 and I’m super excited. Man, that was a lot Tim.

08:54 Tim Strifler: Definitely. I’m excited though. I’m excited to implement these things and so you’ll see the results that come from it.

09:01 David Blackmon: Absolutely. Obviously, Tim and I have some big plans for 2019 on a personal and professional side of things. Our coaching and our courses are going to be a big, big, big, big thing for 2019. We’ve got some super exciting things coming up. We’ve got a Facebook course that’s launching pretty soon, we’ve got the third enrollment of the Divi Business Expert Course, which has almost 400 students in it and more people knocking on the door asking when’s it going to open, when’s it going to open, when’s it going to open. We’re going to do that again. Then the big thing, second half of the year, is going to be our WordPress course. That’s going to be a big monster for us. I’m super excited. We’ve got some great things. Please continue to follow us. We’ve got some awesome stuff coming up.

09:55 Tim Strifler: Indeed.

09:57 David Blackmon: Tomorrow we’ve got another great podcast episode of How to Fund Your WordPress Page ID and Post ID. Tim, until tomorrow, we’ll see you then.

10:08 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye, bye.

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